


a small speck of dust that is able to yell

by orange_yarn



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 23:01:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_yarn/pseuds/orange_yarn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a rule, Hobbits barely clear three inches in height, and while they say your great-grand-uncle pushed four and a half, you are no exception.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a small speck of dust that is able to yell

**Author's Note:**

> This story exists because I knitted up Bofur's hat for myself, and started carrying my LEGO Bilbo figure inside the flap after an unfortunate incident with my sister and LEGO Wargs. That got me thinking -- what if Hobbits were more like Borrowers, running only a couple of inches tall, instead of a couple feet? I decided that a three inch tall Hobbit would be mostly useless, but also hilariously adorable, so here we are.
> 
> Apologies in advance for the second person, Homestuck has ruined me. Don't even get my started on my paleships. :/
> 
> This is technically movieverse, although, I fudged the pacing of events just a bit to fit my purposes. I also made Bilbo three inches tall, so obviously I don’t care about canon.

-+-

_“I say,” murmured Horton. “I’ve never heard tell of a small speck of dust that is able to yell.”_

_Horton Hears A Who, by Dr. Seuss_ ~~~~

 

-+-

 

The first time Gandalf takes his leave of the company – without so much as a parting word, no less – you are honestly a little bit terrified. You’re only sure that half of the dwarves remember your existence on a good day – Bombur has tried to cook you, twice, quite by accident (at least, you hope so), and if you hadn’t passed most of the trip perched up on Gandalf’s shoulder then you are certain you would have been trodden on by now.

 

It’s not like you can blame them – as a rule, Hobbits barely clear three inches in height, and while they say your great-grand-uncle pushed four and a half, you are no exception. You’ve spent your days in the shade of Gandalf’s wide-brimmed hat, sheltered from the sun’s bright rays and even the most torrential of downpours. You spend that night as close to the fire as you can reasonably get, weighing the dangers of the flames against the dangers of dwarven boots, and your sleep is restless.

 

Dawn breaks, cold and clear, and amidst the flurry of activity as the company clears up camp, you pack away your own belongings, laughably miniscule in the eyes of your companions, and hope very fiercely that you are not forgotten. Your voice is tinny, and must not reach the ears of the dwarves, not over the ruckus of banging pots and pans and Thorin barking commands. You resort to chucking pebbles at any passing pair of boots, which is about as effective as you thought it’d be, and in the end you decide to just climb inside the closest pack and pray you are not squashed by the contents. You’re judging the best way to scale the bag nearest to you – Ori’s, you can see his journal peeking out the top – when Bofur’s voice cuts through the haze of early morning conversation and snatches of song.

 

“What about Bilbo?” he asks, and you are so very relieved that you don’t even flinch as the ground shakes and shudders around you with approaching footfalls, you don’t cower in the encroaching shadow as someone a great deal larger than you stoops down and scoops you into their hands.  The world around you rushes by as you’re lifted, and your stomach flops, just a little, just enough that you wish there was something you could latch yourself onto. The movement stops just as suddenly, which isn’t much help for your vertigo, either, to be honest, and you lose your footing, tumbling onto your backside, leaning into cupped fingers and blinking as the face looming above you comes into focus.

It isn’t Bofur, as you’d half expected, since he’s apparently the only one among the company who remembers you exist. Instead you’re staring up into the dark eyes of the youngest dwarf.

 

“Don’t worry about a thing, Mister Baggins,” Kíli says, and the grin that splits his features is not even a little bit reassuring. “We’ll look after you,” he promises, and you almost wish they’d forgotten you after all.

 

-+-

 

To be fair, traveling with Thorin’s nephews is not quite as terrible as you’d feared it might be. You cannot say that the brothers are the most careful of guardians – Kíli once wondered if he could still fire his bow with you riding on the arrow, for example, which would have been calamitous if Fíli had not intervened. Not that the elder brother is completely blameless – Fíli delights in hiding you inside of things, while the rest of the company is less than thrilled to open boxes and bags and find you tugging awkwardly at your collar and mumbling an apology.

 

They don’t mean anything by it, you know, they are not cruel or unkind, but for the most part the brothers view you as a plaything, as an instrument to their continued shenanigans, rather than a (very small) person. Poor Ori bears the brunt of most of their prankings, being another very young dwarf, and probably the second-to-least threatening person in the company. He is unassuming, for the most part, and you like to think the two of you could be very good friends, even if he did almost flatten you with his journal once, but that was more Kíli’s fault for dropping you down Ori’s hood in the first place.

 

All in all, it could be worse, you suppose. You haven’t been forgotten, which is a good thing, and you haven’t been stepped on, which is an even better thing, so you aren’t inclined to complain.

 

Then, there are the trolls.

 

“But, you’re so _small_ ,” Kíli insists, his eyes wide and his warm breath buffeting you as you crouch in his cupped hands. “They won’t even know you’re there.”

 

“I don’t think--” you cut in, but Fíli is just over his brother’s shoulder, nodding emphatically, blond hair glinting in the distant firelight of the troll’s camp, and you measure your desire to be valued, to be a useful, productive member of the company against your fear of an almost certain death.

 

“We won’t let anything happen to you,” Fíli promises, and you snort in amusement, because a great many things have been _happening_ to you, of late, and nearly all of them have been orchestrated by the two young dwarves who are now assuring your safety.

 

You don’t get much of a choice, in the end, because Kíli settles you down on the forest floor and nudges you, just a bit, his fingertips light against your back. It is a very long walk for you, from the fallen log to the campfire, but the brothers are already as close to the trolls as they dare, and you’re already much closer than you would like to be.

 

It is nothing short of miraculous that you survive that night, and when pressed for details later, you do not recall much. The trolls could not decide if you were a talking mouse, or if men really came in that small, but either way you were halfway to crushed in the largest one’s grip by the time Kíli buried his sword in the beast’s calf and you tumbled into the young prince’s waiting palms.  You spent the ensuing battle in the muffled darkness of Kíli’s pocket, and by the time you are something close to conscious once again the dwarves are all tied up or already roasting on a spit. You aren’t sure where you found the strength, but you crawled from the pocket, from the bag, and up onto the shoulder of the nearest troll. You whispered words that you can’t remember now, but it was enough to muddle and confuse them until Gandalf arrived, and with him, the first rays of morning sunlight, and the trolls didn’t have much to say after that.

 

The dwarves don’t say much to you, either. Bofur frowns at you but bites his tongue for once, tearing bandages into strips small enough for you to wrap your ribs, and Óin offers you paste that he swears will ease the ache. It barely covers his fingertip, but is more than enough to coat your chest. There is not much they can do to treat you, as they are very big, in your eyes, and you are very, very small, so you do your best to tend to yourself.

 

Fíli and Kíli offer sheepish apologies and swear up and down that it won’t happen again, that they’ll carry you nice and easy from now on, promise. The only person more skeptical than you is Dwalin, who rolls his eyes and scoops you up himself, settling you down on his shoulder with only a grumbling, huffy kind of noise, and that settles that. You nestle deep into the great furs draped across his shoulders, and because you are very tired, and very sore, and very glad that nobody will be shoving you inside of boots, at least for a little while, you don’t even fight the lull of unconscious. Sleep claims you.

 

-+-

 

You might traveled with Dwalin for quite a while, except you don’t like the look of the axes strapped to his back, especially when he’s drawing them to deal with an approaching Warg, and you’re nearly sliced in two by the business end of the blade. What follows next is a game of what you personally refer to as “Pass the Hobbit.” It’s not that any of them dislike you, exactly – although you do wonder about Thorin. The would-be King Under the Mountain tends to ignore your existence outright, and you like to pretend that doesn’t sting. No, you think the root of the problem is none of the dwarves want to be responsible for dropping you, or accidentally sitting on you, or something equally embarrassing for them, and potentially fatal for you. As for Gandalf, he doesn’t offer to take you back, seemingly content to leave you in the custody of your dwarven companions.

 

You keep your own list of pros and cons for each of them. Sitting with Bombur means you’re one of the first to a meal – but then again, you also run the risk of _becoming_ a meal, as Bombur has not quite shaken the habit of mistaking you for food. Balin tells you stories, tales of Erebor as it was, as it will be again, someday, once you’ve reclaimed the Lonely Mountain. His words fill you up, painting pictures behind your eyelids until you’re walking the city in your dreams, gold towering, glittering all around you. On the flip side of that, Balin hardly ever stopstelling stories, and since you’re something of a captive audience, you’re sometimes stuck listening to the old dwarf for hours on end. Nori and Bifur tells stories as well, except all of Nori’s exploits sound highly illegal, and you can’t understand a single thing Bifur says to you. You tuck yourself in his beard and feel the rumble of his chest, and one day you even feel brave enough to clamber all the way up to the top of his head and examine the axe embedded there. You aren’t forward enough to reach out and touch the metal, even though you’re tempted to, and you can’t decide if the feeling roiling in your gut at the site of ruined flesh and arching scars is amazement or nausea. In the end, you decide it’s a little of both, and slide back down to his shoulder.

 

More often than not, though, you’re likely to find yourself in somebody’s pocket, or packed away in their bag. That is consistently unpleasant, no matter whose pack or pocket it happens to be.

 

It’s not just the dwarves that find you peculiar. You’re riding with Dori the day Gandalf’s friend Radagast comes bursting out of the woods on a sled pulled by, of all things, rabbits. This is only strange until the brown wizard, who is quite fascinated by you, pulls off his hat and offers you a seat in what appears to be a bird’s nest built in his hair. You politely decline.

 

The wargs come, not long after that, and everything is chaos for a little while. There is a great deal of running and skulking about behind boulders. The dwarves are doing their best not to get caught, and you are doing your best not to slip off of Dori’s shoulder. You’re only moderately successful – there’s not a lot for you to hold on to, so instead you drop yourself down and cling to the lacing on his shirt. Every footstep rattles you, jarring your still healing ribs, and your hands are clenched so tightly your knuckles have gone white.

 

You keep you grip well enough, right up until the point where Gandalf calls you all into a hidden passage to escape, and one by one the dwarves slip-slide into a tunnel beneath a rock. That’s about when your hold finally slips, and there you go, tumbling down all on your lonesome. It’s not such a bad fall, especially considering your size, but the descent and subsequent collision with a cave wall is enough to knock the air from your lungs and leave you dazed. You shrink as close as you can into a corner and hope that no one lands on you.

 

Several moments and a dead orc later, you’re just beginning to catch your breath, and the dwarves are about to head further into the tunnels. You mean to say something, you really do, but Dori beats you to it.

 

“Oh,” he says. He frowns slightly, patting himself down as if he’s misplaced something. He sounds very calm. “I think I’ve lost it.”

 

“Lost what?” Nori asks, sheathing his knives as he casts a sidelong glance at his brother.

 

“The hobbit,” Dori answers, and the company’s reaction would probably be amusing, if Bilbo wasn’t so worried about getting stepped on. Several dwarves shout out in alarm, scanning the floor of the tunnel, or shielding their eyes to stare back up the slide.

 

“Who saw him last?” Dwalin half-roars, while Kíli rifles through his pack. You push yourself to your feet, duck back again as Bifur scurries by, then clear your throat.

 

“Hello,” you call, taking a half-step from the wall which, admittedly, is not very far. You raise your left arm and give a half-hearted wave. “Over here.”

 

You have to repeat yourself three times before the dwarves hear you over their own ruckus. Glóin bends down and scoops you up, cradling you carefully in cupped hands.

 

“Are your hurt, laddie?” he asks, pulling you close enough to his face that you have to bat away stray whiskers.

 

“No, no, I’m fine,” you say, sinking down to avoid the reach of Glóin’s beard, and attempting to dust yourself off. You have little luck with either.

 

 You’re about to suggest that maybe you ride with someone who isn’t going to drop you, or lose you in their massive swath of facial hair, but when you open your mouth Thorin calls out, “We need to move,” and Glóin tucks you away inside of his beard before you can say anything about it.

 

-+-

 

Rivendell is – Rivendell is beautiful in a way you cannot describe, and at the same time absolutely enormous, and therefore terrifying. Then again, just about everything you’ve encountered on your journey so far has been enormous and terrifying, but that doesn’t mean you have to get used to it. Not that it really matters – these days of rest are long overdue, and you’ll take whatever reprieve you can. You wouldn’t think that it would be so exhausting, riding around on shoulders, if you’re lucky, or inside of beards, if you’re not, but you are weary to the bone. You spend the first half of your stay asleep, and the second half avoiding Lord Elrond’s sons. If Radagast found you amusing, then the elven twins find you downright hilarious. There’s a gleam in their eyes, far too reminiscent of Fíli and Kíli, in your opinion, and you dread the day that the four of them team up.

 

You hide out with Ori instead, in the quiet corners of Rivendell, removed from the rest of your boisterous companions, and the antics of scheming princelings. He is quiet, for the most part, he records page after page of notes on the flora and fauna of the Hidden Valley, and he has not once tried to fire you from his slingshot, despite Kíli’s repeated suggestions.

 

“Could be useful,” Kíli wheedles. He’s cornered Ori and yourself shortly after breakfast, before the two of you could manage to sneak away to a stream that Ori had been eyeing just two days prior. “Launch him right up at our enemies’ faces, he could put out their eyes with that little needle of his, couldn’t you, Mister Baggins?”

 

“Actually,” you say, and you squirm your way out of Ori’s fingers – he’s got you folded up in his hands, you think in an attempt to protect you from overzealous pranksters, but you would very much like to speak for yourself. “Actually, that sounds like a _terrible_ idea.”

 

On top of that, you’re a little bit offended that he called your weapon a needle, although that is – well, a rather accurate description, since it technically did come from a sewing kit, but still.

 

Kíli is nothing if not persistent. “Just the once,” he presses, and Ori’s stammering enough that you’re worried he might actually hand you over, but Thorin steps out onto the balcony at the last second, calling for his nephew, and Ori takes the chance to flee.

 

“What is it like?” he asks you later that morning. His journal lays out flat on a smooth rock by the edge of a trickle of a stream. The water bubbles and murmurs as it winds its way further into the valley. You sit on the left-hand page of his book, legs crisscrossed and hands folded in your lap, and he’s sketching something on the right-hand page – you can’t tell what it is he’s drawing, not from this angle.

 

“What’s what like?” You look down at the page you’ve camped out on, but you can’t make heads or tails of the runes anyway, so there’s little point. You trace the careful strokes with your fingers and think of the stories in your own head, wonder if there’s any merit in transcribing your own thoughts.

 

Ori sets down his pen and looks straight at you. “You are a very small person,” he says, slowly, as if maybe you had missed that, somehow. “What’s it like, being so…” and he trails off, bending his fingers in an approximation of your height, “…tiny?”

 

“Oh, well.” You tug at your ear and shift uncomfortably under his stare. “It’s normal, I guess. For me, anyway.” Ori’s frown creases his eyebrows, and you continue. “I’ve always been…like this, is the thing. Everyone I’ve ever known is the same way.”

 

“You don’t mind it?” he asks, still watching you very carefully, and you have to think about that for a bit.

 

“No,” you say, a good while later, long enough that Ori has picked up his pen and darkened the lines of his sketch. At the sound of your voice he glances up again, once again completely focused on you. “No, I don’t mind it. I suppose it could be useful, if I was bigger. Maybe I could fight, or, I don’t know, help more with the cooking, or something.”

 

“Bombur says you’re very good with the spices,” Ori puts in, in your own defense. You tend to think Bombur was speaking more on your potential flavor than your skills in the kitchen, but you don’t tell Ori this.

 

“Well,” you say, smoothing out the wrinkles in your waistcoat and looking anywhere but the wide eyes of the young dwarf above you. “If I was any bigger I wouldn’t fit inside my house, would I?” You mean it as a joke, but Ori just sort of ‘hmms’ thoughtfully, and scribbles something down in his journal.

 

It piques your interest enough that you scramble to your feet to get a view of what, exactly, he’s working on over there. When you catch a glimpse, you furrow your brow and tilt your head. You clear your throat once, twice, and say, “That’s me.”

 

Ori doesn’t look up this time, he just continues shading his depiction of you, life-sized and remarkably detailed, actually. “Yes,” he says, very simply, and jots something down in the footnotes.

 

You step across the middle of the book and onto his page – your page, in a sense – and point to the lines of text framing the drawing. “What does that say?” you ask, halfway between demanding and actually curious. “Are you writing down what I’m saying?”

 

“Is that alright?” Ori asks, which is enough of an answer, anyway, and to be honest, it doesn’t really bother you, as long as you’re referenced in the adventure bits more often than his field journal.  You ask him as much, and he proceeds to go red in the face and fidget with his cardigan. “Well,” he says, drawing out the syllables, and now you’re caught somewhere between annoyed and offended. You settle for exhausted and sink down right next to your sketch, wondering, between the two of you, who’s drawn the better lot.

 

-+-

 

The company is two days out of Rivendell the fifth time Óin drops you. It seems that no matter which shoulder you stand on, he always manages to send you flying with that blasted ear trumpet. You’re starting to wonder if he’s doing it on purpose, but when he fails to pick you up after that last fall, you’re almost convinced that he’s completely forgotten about you.

 

You could sit up, you could dust yourself off and heave yourself up onto the nearest boulder and try to wave down the next dwarf that tromps by. It’s much easier, though, to just lie there in the dry, brittle grass and wait, because sooner or later somebody will come along and shove you in their pocket or their pack and it’ll be cramped and dark for a good long while. You’ll be worse for wear, but at least you won’t be left behind.

 

A shadow falls over you and oh, right, perhaps you should have moved out of the way, on account of the dwarves are just as likely to step on you as they are to forget about you, and the thought should probably bother you more than it does right now. You close your eyes, expecting a crushing boot and sudden death, but instead a voice cuts through your self-inflicted darkness.

 

“You alright down there, Bilbo?” the voice asks, and you open your eyes to find Bofur crouched over you, concern hidden beneath his half-smile.

 

I am a person, you know,” and that is not at all what you meant to say, but, there you have it. “A very, very small one, yes, but still, a person.”

 

Bofur blinks, his features folding into a frown, and instantly you feel guilty. You did not mean to sound so very cross, especially to Bofur, who is the one member of your company who has yet to squish you, squash you, or forget you anywhere, accidentally or otherwise – save Thorin, who tends to ignore you, which is somehow worse.

 

“I know that,” Bofur says, frown deepening. He settles himself down to sit cross-legged on the grass in front of you. “’Course I know that. Who says you’re not?”

 

You sit yourself up the same way, staring up, up into his face, backlit by the midday sun, and tell him, quite sheepishly, “Nobody.” You’re frustrated, yes, and more than a little tired of being tossed around from dwarf to dwarf, but it’s no less than you should have expected, setting out on a journey like this one.

 

Bifur passes behind his cousin, and stops long enough to put a hand on Bofur’s shoulder. Bofur waves him on, motioning that he’ll catch up, just a minute, and turns back to you. “Are you alright?” he asks again, very seriously, and you nod.

 

“I’m alright” you tell him. “Although, I think I’d like to walk for a little while.”

 

Bofur flat out laughs at that one, which is fine, you didn’t really mean it, anyway. “I don’t think those little legs of yours will get you very far,” he says, still chuckling, and you much prefer the bright grin to the worried frown he was wearing just a moment ago.

 

“No, “you say, and your smile mirrors his own. “No, I suppose they wouldn’t.”

 

“Can I offer you a ride then?” Bofur asks, and though the grass is starting to get itchy, you think for a moment before answering.

 

“Do I have to ride in your pocket?” you ask. You keep your face very even, and you can see Bofur trying to do the same.

 

“Not if you don’t want to.”

 

“Hmm,” you answer, tapping your chin as you stare up at the dwarf. “Not planning any practical jokes, are you? Did you want to hide me in anyone’s boots?”

 

Bofur’s lips twitch in a poorly hidden grin. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

 

You nod slowly, thoughtfully. You rise to your feet and dust yourself off. “Well, alright then,” you say, and you brace yourself, ready for sudden, swooping hands to scoop you up. Instead, you are surprised, and honestly a little bit touched, when instead Bofur settles his open palm on the grass beside you, thumb tilted up, ready for you to climb aboard. It’s the first thing that’s made you feel respected in, well, in a very long while. You’re not quite sure how to tell him that, though, so instead you step onto his hand, wrap both arms around his thumb for balance, and nod.

 

He lifts you slowly, and you rise past his pockets, which is appreciated, and then past his shoulders, which is baffling. He brings you all the way up to his head, and then tucks you, gentle as can be, behind the fur-lined flap of his well-worn hat.

 

“Well?” Bofur asks, and it is impossibly strange to hear a voice coming from somewhere _below_ you for once. “How’s that? Better than a pocket, I hope?”

 

You nod, once, before realizing that he can’t see you anymore, so you say, “Yes, it’s--” You break off, burrowing your fingers into the fur and leaning back into warm leather. “This will do quite nicely.”

 

Bofur’s whole body vibrates when laughs, but you aren’t afraid of falling, and you aren’t afraid of being left behind. You’ve got a nice view, from up here, the world spreads out all around you, opening up like the pages of one of your books, miles and miles and miles away from you, but for the first time since you left home, not particularly missed.

 

-+-


End file.
